Apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic and dystopian reviews

-Review by Paul Ewbank- Gosh, I really wanted to like this film. I’ve always been a fan of X-Men. Ever since watching the TV series as a kid I’ve had a soft spot for this particular franchise, and the films and my occasional forays into the source comic books have always been enjoyable even…

-Review by Paul Ewbank- Any doubts that Marvel could carry on making their individual characters’ movies work in the post-Avengers universe are finally laid to rest by Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a film that manages to establish its own tone and style while still delivering an awesome action movie and setting up some big…

-Review by Paul Ewbank- This is my first review as a married man, if you’re interested in that kind of thing. Hence why it’s been a bit quiet of Ablogalypse of late- having a wedding to plan kinda reduces one’s time for writing dystopian media reviews down to a minimum. Anyway, the DS game that’s…

-Review by Paul Ewbank- (spoilers in this review) China Mieville is a writer who styles his books as being of the “weird fiction” genre. I used to think of this moniker as being akin to “speculative fiction” and other such pseudo-genres as being for pretentious authors who want their books to be placed atop bestseller…

-Review by Paul Ewbank- Bad films can still be entertaining. Just like how you can watch or read something and cerebrally know it’s very well made and intelligent but still honestly find it a bit boring (coughbladerunnercough), it’s very easy to enjoy something whilst knowing its derivative and pretty badly made and probably isn’t going…

-Review by Ed Bilson- I picked up Ex-Heores as an afterthought during my christmas book binge, and was so gripped I had to go straight back to the shop for its sequels Ex-Patriots and Ex-Communication. It’s one of the few zombie novels I’ve read recently which I wholeheartedly enjoyed: strong, developed characters with a vested…

-Review by Paul Ewbank- (This is the first review I’ve written under restricted conditions; 1000 word limit, one hour to write it, no re-writes. It probably won’t be as good as some of my others, and will doubtless have way more typos unless Liz edits it for me, but this way I can say I’m…

-Review by Paul Ewbank- Neal Stephenson is the real deal. I’ve read two of his books- this one and it’s follow up The Diamond Age– and in both I was amazed by the range and depth of his writing talent. Both books have all the ingredients of true sci-fi genius: intense action, comedy, crazily well…

-Review by Paul Ewbank- I’m learning to beware comics where the main draw is some wacky new concept. I’m all for seeing new ideas and trying to be original but a fresh concept on its own does not a story make. The line between “hook” and “gimmick” is largely down to how well it’s implemented-…

Earlier this year my school ordered in a big selection of books to encourage the year 7s to read. After Tomorrow was a surprising gem I found among them and took home to have a read of. Although not strictly apocalyptic, it centres on a Britain in the middle of severe economic crisis and the…

Every girl in my school seems to be reading Divergent at the moment. Every time I turn around I see the front cover staring me in the face. So, when I was looking for my latest acquisition from the school library I thought I might as well see what all the hype is about –…

One of the perks of being a teacher is access to the school Library. One of my favourite de-stress activities at the moment is, after work, sneaking into the library, grabbing an interesting looking book and going to a Wetherspoons pub to read it with a couple of pints of ale. Most relaxing thing EVER!…